Woolf the feminist radical

Another area of Woolf's radicalism is her proto-feminism. Her views were radical for the time and two of her pieces of writing in particular, A Room of Ones Own and Three Guineas were feminist in content and direction. Her thesis that women needed a room where they could think, read and write alone was considered to be disturbing for the status quo. Three Guineas which derides the then current practice of only educating sons was also challenging for the times. Woolf asks what would have happened if Shakespeare had had an equally talented sister and shows how society is squandering half of its intellectual capital. Read today these writings appear somewhat tame, but that is because feminism has driven our thought in the direction posited by Woolf.